Category: Texas

For some reason or another, my older brother gave me my first camera back in what I remember being 1987. He purchased the Pentax Super Program 35mm film camera from someone at work and it started me on my eventual professional career in photography. I remember seeing the cheap blue camera bag on the carpet of our house and marvelling at this magnificent silvery machine with mysterious knobs and dials. I can still smell the silica gel desiccant packets that were inside the black lining of the bag.

The camera came with a 50mm, a 70-210mm, some filters, and another lens or two not worth mentioning. Those other lenses turned out to be really cheap quality and took Instagram quality images. Attached to the camera was also one of those awesome retro camera straps that are sadly found on hipsters who are using retro cameras such as that Pentax.

I loved that camera but it wasn’t my first as I do remember my mother had a 110mm Kodak that I captured some of my first childish imagery on it’s tiny negatives that are still somewhere in the house on Huisache St. I guess my brother saw something in me and thought maybe I had some talent with photography. I guess he was right because I’ve made my career of taking pictures starting about the time I walked out into the world with that Pentax.

The camera still sits on a shelf near all the new fancy stuff. I almost threw it out but Sweetie made me realize the importance of that gift. I would imagine the camera still works if I put a fresh set of batteries in her.

As the last of the photo labs close in Hawaii, the Pentax becomes a relic lost within the pixels of the digital age. Thank you Brother for the most significant camera that helped start my career. But to tell you the truth, you should have given me a damn stethoscope!

My first professional written article was published in the Star Advertiser Sunday, Nov. 24th. On a trip to Texas last year, it dawned on me how Hawaii and Fredericksburg, Texas, a small town just west of Austin, north of San Antonio, are directly connected by a man who helped win the Pacific War against the Japanese. So I wrote a travel piece on visiting this small town in Texas and the significance of one of the town’s greatest sons has in the history of Hawaii.

Chester Nimitz was born to a German pioneer’s family who help settled parts of Texas. Nimitz rose to be the US Navy Admiral in charge of the Pacific Fleet after the attack on Pearl Harbor. His role in the defeat of the Japanese is slightly overshadowed by the US Army’s Gen. Douglas MacArthur; but in Hawaii, Nimitz’s legacy is not forgotten. Nimitz’s name lends itself to one of Oahu’s most important thoroughfares, Nimitz Highway, along with a nearby elementary school several businesses including a yoga studio and a BBQ joint, although those might be named for their proximity to the road, not the Admiral. At the end of the war, upon returning to Hawaii, he was given a hero’s welcome and led a parade from the battlegrounds of Pearl Harbor to the Kingdom of Hawaii’s historic Iolani Palace. The Admiral was named “Alii aimoku,” or supreme chief, by all the Hawaiian Orders in Hawaii – a rare feat for a haole from Fredericksburg, TX. A war museum was established in his family’s old Fredricksburg hotel and the collection of WWII artifacts rivals Pearl Harbor’s historic museum. The Nimitz Museum actually has the Japanese midget submarine that washed ashore on the beaches of Oahu after the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Quite a collection, indeed!

Please take a moment to read my first travel piece written as a professional “writer.” I’ve never thought of myself as a writer yet I’ve written most of my adult life. Here’s my first chance to prove I can.

In the early 1990’s, I took a design class with a professor whose name escapes me. He taught 2D Design during my freshman year at UT Austin and I found myself painting, drawing, designing and generally having a wonderful time exploring mediums I had never worked with. The class he taught focused on basic art fundamentals; the mild mannered professor knew his stuff. He once claimed he had famed actress Farrah Fawcett in his class back in the 60s. She was from Texas, you know.

My classmates rebelled against conformity, reality, sexuality, and just about anything to rebel against. Some thought they’d be the next Schnabel, Basquiat, or Haring. Mostly they just wanted to get high. I had a hard time relating as I grew up in conservative San Antonio with a Sergeant father, a Bible-beating mom, and a brother who was a cop. I clearly had no intentions of turning out to be a sculptor, performance artists, or general anarchist. I knew I would be a photographer but drifted in and out of majors my first few months drawing towards the art department for a few classes.

In class, no one really told us we were wrong; but kept encouraging us to create and explore what we might not know. I quickly learned that everything in art is subjective but the fundamentals were the bedrock. In this 2D class, the professor had us do an exercise on a white sheet of paper with ink. As I recall, he gave us no real instructions other than to draw lines on the paper. I took my ink pens and ruler and began to doodle.

I had no formal art education at school or in my household. I drew and colored lots as a child but made nothing extraordinary. We’d go to the McNay and the Whitte Museums often and I was always enamored with the old masters and the shapes of the sculptures and figures on display. I guess I had some informal understanding but nothing that an art professor would notice.

At the end of our exercise, the prof came over and critiqued my piece. I remember so clearly he pointing out my sense of balance, negative and positive space, and weight of design. I just saw them as straight lines. I didn’t understand his words until later when I became a professional photographer and began my own career.

I’ll often wander Waikiki in the late afternoon as the tourists begin heading back to their hotels. As they roam around the sand seemingly astounded by the spectacular sunsets, most drop their guard and I’ll capture some interesting moments. As I made my way around a group of people, I noticed this woman wrapped in a damp sarong standing on a pier. I saw her in my peripheral and pushed my way towards her to capture the moment. I wasn’t sure why I was drawn to her other than I found her attractive and secluded from the hoards of people crowding the area to watch the sunset. I began talking out loud to myself noting the monotone colors, her curves, the horizon, and the bend of her arm as she brushed her wet hair from her shoulder. I fired off maybe six frames before the composition was disturbed by people walking through. It was only when I chimped the image on the back of my Leica did the professor’s words echo in my ears. I saw the “balance, space, negative and positive, and weight of my lines.”

Once I got home, I searched for that ink drawing that I’ve kept with me all these years. I was astounded to see how my experienced camera eye had now been able to see, almost naturally, what I drew so long ago, but couldn’t quite comprehend.

I’ve never professed to be an artist. I’ve often said I xerox what’s in front of me. Nothing more…just pressing the copy button instead of the shutter button. Yet I’m happy to hear the professor’s words echo in my head when I do push it. Those words make me realize I might be more of an artist than I think.

I’ve been busy…which is good but haven’t had time to think much about blogging. So here’s a quick post on a few tear sheets from a couple of jobs I’ve had in the last few weeks.

Melissa Rivera is a babe. An art babe no less. Further…a RISD artists and a Chilanga! And when you’re able to shoot a creative person, they do all the work. Melissa made a great portrait for Modern Luxury. I actually didn’t do much but just point the camera. Shes a great designer and could only hope…rather…strive to have the creativity she oozes when you’re around her. Check out her designs on her website.

The Wall Street Journal sent me to the Four Seasons Maui to shoot their updated resort shopping. Always exciting to see a 3/4 page with all my images. Fun Stuff.

And the lead image is of a job I’m proud of as its for Texas Monthly, a mag from my home state. Oddly, a Texan blogger by the name of Kev Jumba was in Honolulu by chance and I had a quick portrait session with him. I contacted Diane Ako at the Halekulani and rented a banquet room to shoot a clean white background. The fit was a bit tight but we got the job done quickly. Erica was a big help. Great portrait and he used my camera as a prop.

17 years ago I never would have imaged the Austin I visited this past May. The green gem of the liberal South developed into a snarling and congested city with swirling highways, Manhattan style co-ops, and a capitalism Austin once fought vehemently in order to maintain its uniquely slacker status as the State’s capital. No where else in Texas would you find rednecks in boots next to a bare-footed bohemian siren across from a sliver-haired professors all crossing paths with a Lucchesed Congressman talking policy with a lesbian couple and their adopted Asian infant. Only in Austin, hence the “Keep Austin Weird” logo that I don’t remember but fondly recall as I more than once found myself in such situations when I was in college back in the early 90’s.

Austin was a Technicolor dream compared to the monotoned murmur of San Antonio, my hometown. Nothing seemed to progress very fast or far in SA other than the Spurs and tourist numbers and when my acceptance letter came bearing burnt orange, I couldn’t wait to escape the clutches of my one horse town.

Again, 17 years later, I knew it could never be the same. The years after I graduated, Austin developed into a premiere town of statue with major tech corps putting their stakes down. SXSW grew into an international event pulling big name bands and acts, and UT’s nationally ranked football program, and of course, its top notch and cheap education, pulled more kids into it’s enrollment. By far, the town of Austin itself drew newcomers for it’s small town flavor and southern hospitality, it’s in-town lakes and Austin’s enduring laid-back and green culture. Sadly, new money and high demand always leads to gentrification and it pushes out many of the people that made Austin…Austin. But change, as much as some may not like it, is good but sometimes gentrification can leave a nasty aftertaste.

We didn’t spend much time in Austin due to our whirlwind tour of Texas so we decided to just drive into town and see what happens. We go for a walk down South Congress and I immediately encounter stuff that begins to wear on me…not for their uniqueness but for its uniformity. Faux-hawks, Converse and skinny jeans. Mercurial girls in short skirts and cowboy boots trying to hard to hide their Brooklyn adapted attitude in western wear. Sneering looks from people who surely didn’t care about me and seemed to be more annoyed by my presence than anything else. It was as if they were annoyed we were on their turf. Eh, its my imagination. Its nothing but I was beginning to think I was like in Southern California with all the curt smiles and bad attitudes.

Within all the hip and vintage clothing were the burnt orange baseball hats of the Levi-ed and booted wearing frat boy and the Umbroed sorority girlfriend with standard frat party t-shirt and Kate Spade handbag. But they were outnumbered by skateboards, Holgas, and people wearing identical “I’m a Pepper” t-shirts. Oddly enough, I felt a more comfortable fraternity with Christi and Jeff than with the new hipster that flowed down the streets.

So I thought…Big deal. So a bunch of ironic non-conformists hipsters found Austin and made it their new town to destroy then bitch about how it was so cool like last week before all the poseurs showed up and ruined everything. Hipsters infected New York long ago so I wasn’t too put out by their entitlements. They uprooted loads of artists and photographers who were making a living (and art) in the slums of Dumbo by rushing in and pushing the rents up to the limits and standards of Manhattan. It’s hard to stop that type of progress.

But what killed me the most about the new Austin was this jackass I came across at the Whole Foods flagship on North Lamar. This guy wore a “Don’t Move Here” logo-ed t-shirt.

Don’t move here. Huh. Don’t move here I kept mumbling to myself. Is that addressed to me? Is that addressed to anyone else that came behind him? Bedazzeled, I rushed off to confront him about his choice of clothing only to loose him in an MC Escher world of similar faces and clothes and attitudes. I, dazed and confused, rushed off to find solace in the past.

I knew what this ass was trying to say. He, probably a newcomer from California, who left his craphole of a state to come here and destroy his new one. Like a virus, jerks like this spread to the new epicenter and declare it off limits to anyone after them. I see this type of attitude all through the Hawaiian Islands.

These entitled types, with privileges, and sometime with none, moved in remote places like Oahu’s North Shore, Molokai, and the far ends of Kauai. They paint, surf, write, smoke pot, eat organic and pepper their language with Hawaiian words. They demand their lifestyles be accepted, praised, glorified, and spread. They cut you off in the crosswalk as they speed by in their hybrids with Obama 2012 stickers on the back. They are the types that help ban plastic shopping bags in Kauai, stopped the Superferry on Oahu, and march en mass on the state capital when their views and beaches are threatened by tourists and developers. They piss on newcomers if their surf breaks get overcrowded and pretend they’ve been local all their lives when they’ve just got off the airplane six weeks ago. They are the last ones in and try desperately to lock the door by swallowing the key so no one else can ruin their slice of perfection.

But the worst of all were the highly regarded food trucks. What an absolute waste of time. Bad attitude and service seems to be the only good things dished out from these trendy trucks. Self-important meals of no real direction or distinction other than the clever ability to take two food groups and deep-fry it in organic vegan oil. Good food, whether its an accidental mishap or taken from the food follies on cable TV, has to have some education behind it. Because you ate banana pancakes on Khao San Rd. and taquitos in Juarez doesn’t give you creative license to deep fry a panko breaded a slice of avocado and expect Bourdain to ordain you a chef.

Oddly, I find Bourdain’s shit-eating grin amusingly absurd as it makes for better TV. His blessing of the food truck culture in Austin must have inspired so many more kids to pick up the spatula and create food not fit for much more than their own stupid egos. I can’t help but to wonder what Anthony was really thinking. Sure there’s probably someone making magic in their rinky-dinky trailer somewhere but it clearly has to be vetted so it can shine.

So as my rants and disappointments come to an end, I must say Austin has changed for the better in many ways but in others I just don’t know. Austin is much more multicultural we saw loads of Indian and Chinese families roaming the capital (uh..it was graduation week! HA!) so it seems diversity is clearly changing the face of the town. I don’t live there anymore and I haven’t lived in Texas for over 15 years but I remember what it was like. I remember older students telling me how it was back in the day. They remembered older students telling them…yada yada yada. So does my review of Austin count? Only to me, really.

The one true thing I did see about Austin laid just outside the city limits towards Lockhart. We drove past a family selling live chickens, goats, and fresh eggs. A young boy of about 12 but mature well beyond his age asked us if we wanted to buy something. His voice hid a slight Mexican accent but his Texan was apparent as his dirt farmed hands and dusty cheeks gleamed of his background. We asked him what kind of peoples came to shop here. Was it only Mexicans? He answered, “No, all races come.”

My wife noted how sad it was for him to have lost his childhood so quickly just to help his family. I felt the same but was clearly convinced he was the future of Texas. It wouldn’t be the immature children with tight jeans and scarves around their necks. It would be that kid selling eggs on that Sunday morning.

That encounter was my tale of two cities. One of entitlements and demands, the other of hard work and sacrifice.